It's More Than Time for a NEW LMDE Re-spin...

[malligt]

Or "Snapshot", if you prefer.... for the Mirror Sites....

6 Months+ have past since the Christmas Re-Spin, and over 1,0000+ updates = RE-SPIN 2011_06 (or "snapshot") ...which ever is most politically correct here.

To download LMDE under present conditions, and go thru the hours of updates is not practical nor productive. Hence my posting.

Just Do it! Now is the time for 2011_06 LMDE re-spin.

C'mon Clem.....

[craig10x]

I think Clem wants to do a whole hoard of improvements before he offers a new iso for LMDE...such as a new optional stable monthly snapshot of updates from Mint instead of using the ones from debian testing (to get much greater stability and far less breakage) improvements to the installer, driver application, etc...etc...Now that he is wrapping up with the release of Mint 11 he will start to work on those things he didn't have time for while doing that...

[ddavid123]

I think Clem wants to do a whole hoard of improvements before he offers a new iso for LMDE...such as a new optional stable monthly snapshot of updates from Mint instead of using the ones from debian testing (to get much greater stability and far less breakage) improvements to the installer, driver application, etc...etc..

I am all for a once a month stable updates! The last several days to a week, an upgrade wanted to remove mint specific packages like mint-meta-debian or something like that! So I have been only doing apt-get upgrade I was thinking about suggesting something like a Mint approved and tested monthly upgrade to LMDE. Would this require a whole new repository for the updates, or just blacklist them in Update Manager until they are tested and ready?

[rhodry]

Or "Snapshot", if you prefer.... for the Mirror Sites....

6 Months+ have past since the Christmas Re-Spin, and over 1,0000+ updates = RE-SPIN 2011_06 (or "snapshot") ...which ever is most politically correct here.

To download LMDE under present conditions, and go thru the hours of updates is not practical nor productive. Hence my posting.

Just Do it! Now is the time for 2011_06 LMDE re-spin.

C'mon Clem.....

I am obviously not as nice as craig10x because I find this sort of post a bit annoying and rude!

This whole "hours of updates" is a fallacy for anyone who has a bit of a think about the tools already provided to you. I have done over 50 fresh installs of LMDE for various people since February and have NEVER had to do more than a handful of updates.

All I did was:
set package cache not to clear,
run APTONCD (in the repos) after initial install and update,
save it to a usb flash drive,
manually clear cache,
continue with updates, not clearing cache,
every few weeks run aptoncd again and save to new (date labelled) folder on flash drive.

On every subsequent fresh install, all you have to do is install from original dvd, run aptoncd restore on each folder in flash drive to populate cache, run 'sudo dpkg -i *.deb' against cache and do a quick 'sudo apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade' to tidy up and you have an up-to-date install.

Even if you did not start this strategy back in February like me, rather started now, you would only have to do the large download ONCE.

Another strategy (for your own use more so than installing for others) is to do updates and run progressive Clonezilla copies of your install. Re-install is no more than a restore and minor tidy up.

This is a rolling release - these sorts of update/backup strategies are YOURS to adapt, not the developers responsibility. Anyone paying attention to these forums would know that Clem lost a valuable resource for LMDE recently and he has been totally concerned with Mint 11.

I am sure when he gets around to LMDE snapshot stuff, it will be sophisticated and rock solid like everything else he produces. In the meantime, have a look in your own backyard and think about how to use the tools at your disposal, I say again; "hours of downloads" for fresh LMDE install is totally unnecessary!!

mini rant complete
rhodry.

[CiaW]

Debian also has weekly builds of testing here: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/

You could grab that and then add the mint repo to your sources.list to mint-ify your install.

[craig10x]

@ddavid123...From what i read, i think what you would be doing is "pointing" your updates toward the mint snapshot updates INSTEAD of using the default which of course is pointing toward debian testing...You would be getting your updates from MINT instead of Debian...So when updates would come down (let's say around 1x a month) from Mint, that is when you would see updates available to download....
So yes, you would be changing your repos to mints instead...

I think the main reason why PcLinuxOs is considered one of the most stable and trouble free rolling distros is because the guy that runs it (texstar) maintains COMPLETE monitoring and control over the updates coming down for it...This would be a way (though certainly less frequently then PcLinuxOs does it) to strive for that same kind of stability and trouble free that you unfortunately do not get from debian testing...

@rhodry...I was just trying to "clue him in" perhaps he isn't aware that LMDE is really a one man project (especially with the loss of Ikey as far as working on mint) and Clem can only work on LMDE in between regular Mint releases...Also, he would rather release a new iso that is more then just updates but also contains lots of improvements as well...makes sense to me

I had gone back to Mint 10 main because i got frustrated with the updates breakage and all...so, when that new iso comes out with the snapshot updater and other improvements, i may very well be tempted to return to LMDE again...

[malligt]

@rhodry

I guess I'd have to say that the "handful of updates" you say you've installed since February, in my opinion, is urban myth,
A "handful" to me, and I think to most readers, would be more like the 67 updates I got this morning....and I have absolutely no problem with that. Not the over 1,000+ updates that is the real user experience (installing from "new") since the last Dec re-spin.

The initial LMDE MU updating process (the "hours" I mentioned in my original post) is dependent on the users Internet connection speed. So, some will obviously have faster experiences with updating due to their Internet provider...others will have a more lengthy update interval for the same reason.

@ all others

I see your point(s) about waiting for all "tweaks" and "improvements" to be finalized before putting out a re-spin, but I think the benefits of pre-scheduled semi-annual, and/or even quarterly LMDE re-spins attracts far more users than it repels.

[craig10x]

That's very true...rolling distros like LMDE have a huge amount of updates...
When i recently installed Mint 10...the amount of updates i had to do (which was 5 months worth) was about the same i often would get on LMDE in a WEEK

[mhwelsh]

I lost LMDE by accident and a reload from CD calls for 950 updates to-day.
What does not help is Update Manager complains about broken packages and Package Manager swears blind that there are none.
When you try updating with apt-get there are various 'useful' notes in the middle of the update that inhibit leaving the machine to get on with it.
When you get to the end of the update the machine is broken!

Please Rhodry will you generate a 'tutorial' about your method that the less able could understand.


martin welsh

[amina]

I see your point(s) about waiting for all "tweaks" and "improvements" to be finalized before putting out a re-spin, but I think the benefits of pre-scheduled semi-annual, and/or even quarterly LMDE re-spins attracts far more users than it repels.

I can second this.

This is not the same a having a forced release cycle, lots of users already use LMDE as it is. It is just about taking a snapshot of this state so that a new install is easier. Improvements should find their way through the updates anyway because those who already have a working LMDE system do not want to re-install their system (that's the point of the whole rolling release thing, isn't it? why should improvements be linked to releases when we do not really have releases?).
Installing LMDE at the moment is definitely possible, but not very comfortable. This is of course subjective but then some could also say, hey, why not have only 1 ISO every 2 years??

[craig10x]

The improvements that Clem will make for LMDE that will appear in the next iso, will come down automatically for those of you who already have LMDE installed...you won't have to re-install with the new iso to get them...

I guess Clem must have decided to wait until he has a chance to make the improvements before releasing another iso which of course will have all the updates until now already on it....

[amina]

Yes, I understand that this is the plan and concept.
I (we?) just questioned if this approach (waiting with new ISOs until the improvements can all be included) is really that useful in a rolling release, where for a large proportion of users those improvements have to be added via updates anyway.
(As opposed to normal distro releases, where, if you choose not to reinstall/dist-upgrade, you will not automatically get the new features.)
I mean, if it is worth waiting so much for this sole reason.
I know it is Clem's decision and I am in no way an expert, these are just my thoughts on the topic.

[jeffreyC]

The real argument in favor of a new ISO is that for users new to LMDE the first update will be huge, and after all Mint is supposed to be new user friendly.

[craig10x]

The real argument in favor of a new ISO is that for users new to LMDE the first update will be huge, and after all Mint is supposed to be new user friendly.

I agree with both of you about this...probably should be an iso just with updates for now and then the new iso with updates and new improvements when he has them done...

Although regarding LMDE being newbie friendly...the touchpad tap isn't even on by default (that could confuse a newbie) and the installer doesn't even yet have an auto install options available (another non-newbie friendly aspect)...Hopefully a lot of changes will be coming that will make it more newbie friendly as well as more stable and less prone to breakage (using the snapshots repo from mint instead of debian testing directly...

[aljoriz]

You can donate to clem so that we can have a new iso although that does not guarantee it.

In reality all we can do is to wait and chance favors those who wait.

[amina]

I think the main problem with the updates is not that it was hard (or newbie-unfriendly) to start MintUpdate.
The problem is, that it takes long (and I often hear quick install as an advantage of Linux) and that you will be immediately confronted with the "fix broken packages" message.

(As for the touchpad, I tried several live CDs and Ubuntu was the only distro where my touchpad was enabled out of the box. On some, I could navigate to the settings with right click and keyboard, but on most of them I had to use an USB mouse to enable the touchpad. Strange default setting, but not unique to LMDE.
On the logon screen my touchpad still does not work (same on openSuse). On KDE, it was even worse, I first had to install Synaptiks to enable the touchpad.)

[Elmacus]

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=73987

CLEM:
* In June, the focus will shift towards LMDE which will receive the Mint 11 features, and for which we’re also planning specific improvements (particularly on the installer and the update manager), as well as the KDE and LXDE editions. After this, we’ll be testing different scenarios and considering our options for the future, whether we want to switch to Gnome 3, how ready it is and what can be achieved with it. Many options are there for us, including forking Gnome 2 or even Gnome 3 and it’s too early to say what will happen next. But we have 6 months to decide and as always, we’re quite determined to come with something that’s better than before. We like our desktop the way it is, and comes Linux Mint 12, we’ll be looking to bring you something either as good or better than what we already have. It’s a hard promise to make considering the drastic changes occurring upstream, but this is what we’re aiming for and so we’ll be looking into the most efficient ways to implement our desktop and to reach our goals.

Nice, im happy user ^^.
After new installer its time for new ISO i hope.

[craigevil]

Why would you need a new iso?

Install apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges,
run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -yd at least once a week

Or use smxi.

Hell if I can keep Debian sid running on the same system without reinstalling since Feb 2004 anyone can.

Things usually tend to break because of user error, people not paying attention to apt-listbugs or what might be removed.

[jeffreyC]

When the updates are nearly the size of the ISO it is time for a new ISO

[Elmacus]

@craigevil. For the friends computer we convert. Not our own ofcourse.
It's pretty embarrassing to have more updates than windows.

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